B. F. Skinner Quotes

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

Only the fools are certain and assured.

Stupidity consists in wanting to reach conclusions. We are a thread, and we want to know the whole cloth.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

Doubt is the middle position between knowledge and ignorance. It encompasses cynicism but also genuine questioning.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

What is important is that one utilizes one's intellect and not to be 100 percent sure about one's convictions. One should always leave room for doubt.

Doubt is not below knowledge, but above it.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

In philosophy you're never 100% sure. You're always undermining what you think you know. That's always been my philosophy and my intellectual ethos.

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty.

No one is infallible, and no one can claim a monopoly on truth or virtue. It would be contradictory for skepticism to seek to translate itself into a new faith.

I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.

True belief is not about blind submission. It is about open-eyed acceptance, and acceptance requires persistent distance from the truth, and that distance is doubt. Doubt, in other words, can feed faith, rather than destroy it. And it forces us, even while believing, to recognize our fundamental duty with respect to God's truth: humility. We do not know. Which is why we believe.

All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.

Intellectual modesty is humility as to what I know; intellectual humility is modesty as to what I do not know

Wonder is not precisely knowing.

I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

We don't need to invest all of our faith in every concept, in every symbol, in every opinion that forms the totality of our knowledge. Faith means to believe in something 100% without a doubt, and to doubt our own knowledge can seem like the most frightening thing that can happen to us.